6 tips for beginners to help you meal prep like a pro

If you're looking to create a healthier lifestyle for yourself, beginning to meal prep is a great start. Like a lot of things meal prepping gets easier the more often you do it, but sometimes starting out is the hardest thing. We've come up with some great tips for beginners to help get the ball rolling.


1.  Pick a day

‘Meal prep Sundays’ is a real thing guys. Well it doesn't have to be Sunday but you get the point. Choose a day that you have ample free time so you're not rushing through the process. You want enough time to allow for shopping, cooking and cleaning (trust me the cleaning takes a while). Once you've chosen a day, stick to it and do your prep on that day every week. This way you'll always have healthy food ready and you won't be making sneaky lunch orders.

 

2.  Choose simple recipes
This is a big one to remember for when you're just starting out. Don't go choosing something that requires steaming, baking, boiling, frying and grilling or you'll end up with a mess of a kitchen. You can make some really healthy meals that only require a few steps and this is going to make your life a whole lot easier. Google is your best friend here, just jump online and find something that looks tasty and nutritious without too many ingredients that seems easy to make.
Some of my favourites are Moroccan baked chicken with beans and broccoli, pasta with meatballs and warm roast vegetable salads.


3.  Know your calories/macros

Before you start cooking, shopping or even thinking about what delicious food you want to cook for the week, you have to figure out how much you need to be eating. See this article  to know how to calculate your calories and macros. Once you've figured this out, you can then tailor your meal prep around hitting these numbers. Don't worry about getting them exactly perfect, they are just a guide as to what you should be consuming overall for the week. Using an app such as MyFitnessPal can help with tracking macros and will make calculating everything you need for your meal prep a lot easier.


4.  Leave enough time

As I said in my first point, you don’t want to be rushing around leaving a mess everywhere and stressing that you have to be somewhere else in 20 minutes. Make sure you choose a day when you have time to shop and cook comfortably. If you can, allow for at least half a day to give yourself sufficient time to complete and enjoy the process of preparing your weekly meals.

 

5.  Prep everything first

Honestly I can't stress this enough. Unpack your shopping bags, organise everything you need then prep all your vegetables and meat (seriously do it all, not just for one particular dish). Only once you've finished prepping everything should you start actually cooking.

 

6.  Learn to multitask

When you're attempting to cook multiple things at once, learning to multitask in the kitchen is a useful skill. If you need to fry something and boil another thing at the same time, try boiling the the water you will need for your pot in a kettle as this method is faster and allows you to focus on your fry pan. One thing I also like to do is keep the sink full and ready to do dishes when I have a spare minute because cleaning as you go is key.
If you found this content helpful, you may be interested in trying something from our snack range to incorporate into your weekly meal prep.  
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